So instead of Sralan and a bunch of power-suited, over-confident twenty-somethings stabbing each other in the back, last night we got Lord Sugar and a group of power-suited over confident teens equally eager to stab each other in the back. The Apprentice Lite if you like - but with over-sized suits, some acne and a couple of the lads looking like they shouldn’t be out of short trousers.
Uncle Alan treated the boys and girls to a softer introduction complete with twinkly smile but apart from easing the blow slightly during his first firing pretty much dealt with the youngsters as he would the regular apprentices.
The first person to get fired was unfortunately the Irish teenager, Jordan De Courcy, who looked remarkably like he could be Ryan Tubridy’s younger brother (he may in fact have been wearing one of Ryan’s old suits). It was obvious from the outset that he would go when the kindly programme editor chose to leave in a line in which he said in a piece to camera he was amazed by the poor quality of some of the other candidates.
Fatal error Jordan! The fact that Jordan started his own business aged just twelve clearly intimidated the other boys. He quickly seemed to be in a league of his own by coming up with the name of the team (Instinct) and volunteering to be project manager. He may as well have just been walking around selling cheese with a target on his back. If they lost - he was going.
And boy did they lose! They committed the ultimate crime in the Lord’s book – making a loss! Watching the show things didn’t seem to be going all that badly – it was only back in the boardroom that we realised that they only made sales worth around £30 in addition to the job-lot they sold to the clearly ecstatic restaurant owner. It was hardly a cheesetastic effort!
Traditionally the type of people who elect to go on programmes like this lack the essential ability to edit out those crazy thoughts that occasionally pop into one’s head “I’m the best here – this is going to be a walk in the park”. Watching last night I realised that teenagers don’t have that ability at all – it comes later which could just make this very interesting viewing.
Hibah, who was reluctantly managing the girls’ team, started to cry when the exceptionally confident Zoe excluded her from negotiating a deal. It reminds you that these guys are still just kids. You would never see a contestant reduced to tears in episode one – they would be too busy working out their game-plan. Last night the teams got into the boardroom and almost immediately Hibah and Zoe started in on their dispute not even waiting for Lord Sugar to ask them how they got on. In the regular Apprentice they would all have lied and through gritted teeth said “yes we all got along fabulously”.
My favourite moment last night was when Tim (the one who looks forty and has masses of facial hair) used the wind as an excuse for not making more of his credit crunch lunch boxes. When challenged by the Lord he responded by saying that “wind is my least favourite type of weather.” Oh really how fascinating. Incidentally this lad earns his pocket money by farming.
Is this mandatory viewing? Hardly but I will be watching hoping they give more air-time to the legend that is Nick Hewer.
Bree Treacy
